Good memory Jim. Yeah, here's #1, most definitely Kubert...also, here's an inside page featuring the 1974 Janex talking alarm clock. Just as an aside, I fell for the false advertising of the clock that boasted, "Wake up to the actual voices of the Dynamic Duo"...I was disappointed it wasn't West and Ward, but you know, I would have purchased the clock anyway had I known.

Those Heroes World catalogs were fascinating. Even as I kid I had to wonder if it wouldn't have been cheaper to just photograph the merchandise instead of paying artists -- even student artists -- to draw them all. But maybe here we see the reason why: even a piece of junk can look cool in an illustration.

The Megos in particular varied greatly depending on who drew them. Sometimes they looked like fairly comics-accurate miniature heroes, while other artists tried to capture their true clunky, oddball nature with the baggy cloth costumes and "oven mitt" gloves, but all the illos looked better than the real thing.

The weirdest part was the ads for posters or books that were themselves designed around famous illos. Show me Infantino's cover for " Batman from the 30s to 70s" and you've got an instant sale. Show me an anonymous art student's interpretation of the art of Infantino, not so much.

I still laugh sometimes at the sheer chutzpah of a catalog that says, "Hey kids, send us your money and get something that looks sorta, kinda like the image shown here. More or less."

That blister card is the bomb. I sorely miss that "Wild West" era of marketing, where an Ernie Chan (!) illo could be arbitrarily paired with a 1940s logo without a bean-counter somewhere insisting on a consistent "brand."

If you remember and miss the days we saw wonderful junk like this in every grocery, drug store and five-and-dime, check out the great book, "Rack Toys: Cheap Crazed Playthings" by Brian Heiler, webmaster of the great "Plaid Stallions" website, celebrating everything cheesy from the 70s and early 80s.

Man, I love all the old comic ads and all the cheapie toys we used to get at the 5 and dime store or the occasional find in the grocery or drug store toy section. I would have been over the moon back then to have found some of these Bat-items. I think as a kid cheapness didn't matter, only as long as the toy could help further my imagination.

"Hmmm... I don't like the twist this joke is taking. Let us away! Let us away!"

Man, I love all the old comic ads and all the cheapie toys we used to get at the 5 and dime store or the occasional find in the grocery or drug store toy section. I would have been over the moon back then to have found some of these Bat-items. I think as a kid cheapness didn't matter, only as long as the toy could help further my imagination.